A new Crysis Monthly
Update #9 is online, offering the notes from the recently released Crysis
Warhead patch, some contest results, and other community-related stuff. They
also have a update on testing of the SDK and editor, which is that they are
indeed in testing; apparently The Right Stuff-style centrifuge and enema testing: "As you have
all been waiting so patiently for an update on the Editor and SDK, we're once
again giving you some updated information. The new version of the editor is
currently in testing, which means that we're nearly ready to release it. There
will definitely need to be lots of tests done, so you'll still have to wait a
little while longer, but we are getting closer to the long awaited release of
the tools."

Ready for developers does not necessarily mean ready for the end users. The level of polish needs to be a fair bit higher, especially because they can't guarantee system configuration.

They didn't recreate the wheel for Warhead, it's essentially the same editor used for Crysis with a few tweaks.

The only other excuse for the delay is somehow they thought it might drum up more sales for Crysis since that's been the only way to get the working version of Sandbox2 (legally anyway).

I'm not bashing Crytek, it's quite apparent that they are fond of people modding the game, few companies create an entire web portal dedicated to the games modding community (www.crymod.com), it's just odd that they've held off on releasing the editing tools this long.

Is Crytek afraid that someone will mod their game into something more exciting than what they're working on? I can see the SDK needing extra work but the editor? They made the game with it, surely they could have released it along with Warhead.